


there’s something broken about this (but i might be hoping about this)

by stardustandhome



Category: Ready or Not (2019)
Genre: (sort of), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Daniel Le Domas Lives, Daniel may not have an accurate understanding of events, F/M, Grace will do anything to keep him, Light Angst, Miscommunication, Post-Canon Fix-It, Recovery, a sprinkling of eat the rich, they just deserve to be happy okay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,401
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27008914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustandhome/pseuds/stardustandhome
Summary: Of all the people in the world, Grace is sure that Daniel is the one person who understands her.He sighs, considering. “I just…maybe, I wish Alex had made it too. Obviously, it’d fuck up the two of us. But it’s him who deserves it all. He’s the one with the soul.”Or not.
Relationships: Daniel Le Domas/Grace Le Domas
Comments: 10
Kudos: 144





	there’s something broken about this (but i might be hoping about this)

**Author's Note:**

> hello! this is kind of the first fic i'm posting ever, so uh, ta da! i know the fandom is like, dying out because the movie came out a year ago but they still live rent free in my mind so here we are. enjoy!

Grace wakes up, as she does most nights, screaming.

She can never quite pin down the exact nightmares once her eyes are open, but the fragments are more than enough to push her into tears. They’re not too bad sometimes, especially if it’s just Helene coming after her, or Charity, or, for the most part, even Becky. Really, it’s seeing Alex that floors her, and she wishes she could scrub that feeling, of his hands crushing her skull, out from her memories.

It takes her a few moments to regain her bearings– remember that she’s in her new apartment, in bed, alone, and importantly, free from the Le Domas mansion and months away from that night. Her throat is raw and dry, so she decides that this won’t be one of the times she’ll try forcing herself back to sleep (which never seems to yield results anyway). Instead, Grace carefully pulls the covers off her body, grabs her phone off the dresser, and makes her way to the kitchen.

She doesn’t bother turning on the lights, and it hardly even matters. Although she moved in over a month ago, the flat is still bare. It’s good enough, fully furnished and fully stocked with a housekeeper that comes by each week. And it doesn’t look unlived in, given her clothes strewn across the floor and the bottles of medicine that line her bathroom counter. But the finer points of interior decoration haven’t quite been on her mind as of late, and Grace is far from ready to start calling somewhere new “home”. Besides, most of her things are back in the place she shared with _Alex_ , and Grace doesn’t know if she’ll ever be strong enough to revisit the stuff that she shared with him, much less actually go there to sort them out.

Once she’s safely in the kitchen, Grace fills a glass with water and downs it just as quickly. The cool relief is gone as soon as it’s come, so she drinks again. The glass wobbles when she sets it down, and her left hand shoots forward to stabilise it before she remembers that it’s not strong enough yet to handle holding objects.

The doctors told her that she was fortunate (though, what’s it really mean to be lucky, after all of this?), that despite the gaping wound, she’d be able to look forward to regaining most of the motion in her fingers. It was the handiwork of the best surgeons and physical therapists in the world, see. Turns out that when your newlywed billionaire husband’s family gets blown to smithereens, you stand to inherit _a lot_ of money.

Although, the money’s not all hers, so maybe there’s a bit less that Greenpeace can expect. She’s not the only one in control of the Le Domas fortune. She wasn’t the only survivor.

The damned morning, as they ferried her off in an ambulance, she overheard the dispatchers yelling orders to pull _the other live body_ from the wreckage. They had sedated her by then, so she was barely hanging on at that point. Still, it was unmistakeable. _“There’s one more in there,”_ she heard them yell. _“Male. Sustained a wound in the neck.”_ The ambulance doors shut before she could make out more, and she passed out in the van shortly after.

Her last thought before losing consciousness: _Daniel_.

So it made sense that he was the first thing on her mind when she woke up, too. The world was painted in Impressionist blotches when she opened her eyes again, but it took almost no time for her to lock onto the slender figure draped across the chair that was facing her bed. As she grew accustomed to the light, Grace recognised him as her saviour.

The first thing she took note of was that when Daniel was clean shaven, he seemed to also shed years, a look no doubt supported by the peace that settled in his sleeping face. After all that had happened, the idea that a Le Domas might look _angelic_ felt like a farce. Although, if it was anyone– anyone who deserved to look like that, anyone who deserved to live– it was him.

“Daniel, wake up.” Her arm was heavy, much stiffer than she remembered it ever being, but it made it through the short distance between them so that she could press his arm.

He roused quickly. “Grace. You’re finally awake. Here I was beginning to think you were immune to my alarms.”

“Finally? How long was I out?” Speaking was painful and her voice was scratchy, so she reached for the cup of water beside her. She stopped short when she noticed her bandaged left hand. There was a hole in it, the last time she saw it.

He stood, taking the water for her, and angled it towards her mouth. The process wasn’t perfect, and she ended up with more water on her chest than in her mouth, but she appreciated the gesture.

“Don’t move too fast, Grace,” he says, dropping back down into the chair. “You’ve been out for over a week. Mostly from the shock, but you had surgery too. Mostly for the hand– grafts, I think– but there was also your shoulder, and you had a ruptured organ that needed replacing. They say you’ll basically make a full recovery, though. Pretty damn good for a bride who went through hell. You might even give Uma Thurman a run for her money.”

“What about you? How are you… here?”

He grinned, turning his head to give her a good look of the gauze stuck to his neck. “Turns out that my wife is a worse shot than we thought. The bullet grazed me, as it turns out, and I passed out from shock. I woke up a few days ago but I’ve been checking in on you. Don’t worry, I’ve tried not to look too much like the dutiful spouse awaiting my lover to return from war.”

There was still a lightness to his tone, but his lips were twisted ruefully. “They told me what happened. Or at least, as far as anyone could figure. But the police did tell me that Alex…I know Alex is…”

Daniel frowned, unable to continue.

Grace nodded, thankful that she didn’t have to be the one who broke the news to him, about the one family member he loved. The one person in the world that he loved. Her voice is soft (as much as she can control it) when she speaks. “Daniel. Hey.”

He shook his head. “You focus on recovering, Grace. I need someone to split the cash with, after all. The money isn’t going to blow itself.” She takes his hand, and he squeezes her back. “We’re a sorry pair, aren’t we?”

“Maybe,” she said. “But we’re together. And we’re alive.”

He leaned close, resting his head against their hands. “Yeah. That we are.”

* * *

After that, it was weeks before they’d gotten to see each other. In that time, if it wasn’t the bevy of surgeons and psychologists getting their hands all over her, it was the police officers pulling her time and time again into periods of drawn out questioning. The official story was somewhere between a gas leak explosion and Stevens’ revolt against the family, but Grace hadn’t really bothered to keep track.

By the time she was released, she was so thoroughly exhausted that she just wanted to be left alone. A lawyer had set up her living arrangements for her (because Daniel had been right about the billions to blow) and a housekeeper kept her fed. Daniel called her a few times, but Grace decided that his presence brought her too close to reliving her wedding night and left him to voicemail.

Now, in said living arrangement and left to figure out how to fill the next hours until daylight, Grace brings out her phone, and the traitorous clock tells her that it’ll be ages before the sun comes up. She weighs her options: she’s been catching up on a lot of late-night reruns, much to chagrin of her therapist, who’s been telling her that at least _trying_ for a decent sleep schedule is the first step into reassimilating into general society. So, she’s allowed to call her therapist up, even though it’s just about the witching hour and all good people are long asleep, because that’s what million-dollar retainers get you. But there’s no point, really.

Her therapist can tell her that she’s suffering from PTSD, from grief, from abandonment issues, and a whole slew of other problems, but Grace can’t tell him what really went on.

“You mean,” he told her patiently, “it _feels_ like they’d made a deal with the devil. And it _feels_ like they were trying to kill you. I understand that meeting the in-laws can be terrifying, and that’s without the explosion that followed your wedding.”

“ _No_ ,” she wanted to tell him. “ _They were really trying to sacrifice me. There was a table and chanting and everything_.”

“ _You should’ve been there_ ,” she’d say. “ _Maybe they’d lend you a cult robe and a knife_.”

She bit back her tongue instead and nodded along his diagnosis. “Yes, the delusions are powerful.”

This leaves a single person in the world who would really, actually understand her. She hasn’t contacted him in weeks, not since leaving the hospital.

He answers on the first ring. Grace thinks she feels more relief than she ought to.

“Grace? Why are you calling? Are you okay?” His voice is not heavy with sleep, and she suspects that the boat he’s in is not unlike hers. It’s _schadenfreude_ , perhaps, but it’s a realisation that lights suspiciously something like joy within her.

Yet, it’s confusing, hearing his voice. She thinks of how he tried to save her, but it’s a horror to be thinking of that night at all.

“Grace? You there?”

“I’m here, Daniel. Thanks for picking up.” She opens her mouth to continue, but stops short, unsure of what to say.

“Anything for my sister-in-law,” he drawls, dripping with a tone that makes her think of that moment just before her ceremony when he’d brought her and Alex down into the courtyard.

Grace tries to laugh anyway, and it’s stilted and breathy. “I couldn’t sleep. And it’s late. And I…I didn’t want to talk to anyone else.”

There’s silence on the other end that clings on too long. She knows he’s still there because his laboured breathing is loud on the receiver, but she thinks he’s about to hang up. Instead, he asks: “What’s your address? It sounds like we could both use a bit of company.”

* * *

Grace would like a manual. It’s too bad that something like ‘ _Hosting Guests’ for Dummies_ might not cover it. Maybe ‘ _Hosting Your Brother-in-law After He Saved You from His Murderous, Satan-Worshipping Family, Including His Brother, Your Actual Husband’ for Dummies._ Ideally, they’d have suggestions of the right snacks to put out, at the very least, or sample topics for conversation.

There’s a bag of unopened chips on the table, and she’s silently staring at Daniel as he takes a sip of water, grasping at straws of hospitality.

“Are you sure I can’t get you something stronger?”

“I’m going sober. My therapist’s idea.” He shrugs. “I give myself a month before I crack. We’ll see.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

Daniel snorts. “Please. You’re the last person who should be apologising to me. After what my family tried to pull–Well, you’re one of the last, anyway. I figure I’ve pissed a good number of customer service staff over the years who definitely didn’t deserve it, but it’s not like Charity would’ve been taking notes.”

Grace winces at the mention of Daniel’s late wife and would-be murderer, but his voice doesn’t falter in the slightest. She wonders if she’ll ever reach the stage of making jokes about Alex without breaking down in tears of equal parts anger and grief.

“I’m shocked, really. The Le Domases are customer service nightmares? Who would’ve guessed?”

“I think,” Daniel says slowly, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards, “Fitch might disagree. You’ve never heard one of his speeches, of course, and you can count yourself lucky on that. But he’d make the maids’ lives hell with the dumbest fucking requests that he could’ve easily done himself and _still_ swear that he was a man of the people who hadn’t let the money go to his head.”

Before it’s gotten too much time to sink in, Grace finds herself laughing. “I take it that you never approved of your brother-in-law.”

“See, he’d tell you otherwise. The man thought we were thick as thieves. But really, he wasn’t good enough for Emilie, and my sister was the screw up in a family of murderers.”

“Funny, the verdict’s not out yet with mine. I suspect he’s mostly a giant pain in the ass to deal with,” she teases. “But he did save my life. So it’s equal, really.”

Daniel catches Grace’s eyes. “And thank God for that. You deserve it.”

“You mean it?”

He nods once. “I do. If I didn’t it’d be a pretty sorry time for regrets, wouldn’t it?”

She stares straight at Daniel, grounded in the clarity he gives. There are no barriers of misunderstanding between them. “I feel the same way. You deserve to live.” And just as she did in the hospital, she takes his hand. Once again, he squeezes back. There’s a bad joke to be found somewhere here.

There’s also a part of her, as she relishes in the warmth of Daniel’s hand, that thinks about how inevitable this feels. To be around Daniel _is_ to relive that night, but it’s also the first time that the memories don’t cut her. And maybe this is what recovery looks like.

She only gets up later to put a movie on, to kill the time before the waking hours. His hand finds hers after that, too.

Daniel leaves almost twenty-four hours later. The perk of being sole heirs to a multi-billion-dollar fortune is, of course, that there’s no managers to call in sick to or anyone to enforce schedules upon them.

Before he goes, Daniel turns to Grace at the door, serious. “I have one request, Grace.”

“Of course. Anything.”

“Let’s not keep any secrets between us. Not with recovery or relapses or whatever the fuck else. If we’re going to help each other, I think we can leave that much open, don’t you?”

Grace smiles. “We’re going to help each other?”

“I sure hope so. I just changed your contact name in my phone to ‘my saviour’. Wouldn’t want to make me out a liar to my phone, would you?”

His eyes are twinkling, and Grace is feeding off the energy that crackles between them. She hasn’t felt so human in weeks.

“I have one more thing, actually,” he says. “I know that a lot happened, obviously. But about Alex…”

Her breath hitches, and she’s unsure of where Daniel wants to take this. Unpacking _that_ would require more than a ‘at the door as you’re heading out’ type conversation, that much she knows.

“If it’s all right with you, I’d appreciate if you give me some time. Before we talk about him. I’m still figuring out how to process everything that’s gone on. So we’ll get there but…not right now. Okay?”

In response, Grace steps forward to bring Daniel into a hug. Alex would be a tough spot for both of them, of course. But Daniel had seen his family, _all of his family_ , and chosen Grace. She would give him whatever he wants.

Grace mimes turning a lock over her lips. “Take as long as you need.”

* * *

Daniel becomes a semi-permanent fixture at her house, and her life, afterwards. His number is naturally the first she thinks to call when she’s done with a therapist’s appointment, be that mental or physical.

Her therapist thinks she’s walking on thin ice. Grace finds it difficult to give a fuck what he thinks.

Daniel is with Grace for all of her new firsts. Her first meal out, her first trip down to the laundry machines on her own, her first grocery run. In turn, she helps him to redecorate, she lets him take her through his favourite filmography, she teaches him to cook all by himself for the first time in his life. She’s with him when he feels like relapsing, and he talks to her when she can’t fall asleep.

She’s there changing his sheets and icing his forehead as he goes through alcohol withdrawal. Daniel’s gripping her hand as she moves to get him more water, begging her to stay. “I need you, Grace.”

His voice is soft, and she’s not entirely sure how conscious he is at all. His eyes are glazed, like he’s trapped in a place between reality and falling apart, and he hasn’t quite decided which way he’ll go. He looks childlike. Grace considers the childhood he never got.

So she makes her way back to him, and shifts his body so there’s space for her beside him. “I’m here. I won’t leave you.”

As the days go by, if Daniel notices ties that grow between them, he doesn’t make particular mention to them. Instead, he asks, just casually as he’s tagged along her grocery run: “Do you mind if I keep some clothes at your place? Might bring a toothbrush over too, if that’s okay.”

She pictures what this means; images of the two of them brushing their teeth together ala _Bring It On_ flash through her mind, a drawer full of his shirts in her dresser. It’s almost painfully domestic, but it pricks the back of Grace’s mind to realise it doesn’t hurt considering it when she’s considering it with Daniel. Strictly speaking, it doesn’t even make that much of difference, they’ve basically been living together, just split between both their flats.

She tells him, “of course,” and goes into the personal toiletries aisle to get the things she knows he’ll need. It doesn’t even occur to her that she didn’t have to ask about his favourite brands until she sees that on the top of the trolley, he’s already picked out her favourite cereal even though she doesn’t remember ever telling him what it is.

* * *

It’s another Tuesday night (Wednesday morning?) that has woken Grace up with nightmares. It’s another Tuesday night that Grace and Daniel have taken up their well-worn spaces on her couch.

She dreams of Daniel for the first time. In her dreams, she is usually facing off the Le Domases alone. Sometimes a man comes to save her. He will be kind and speak to her softly, he will be a warrior who holds his own against the entire family. He will take her home in the morning, and she will see him stand guard by her door as she lays in bed. But she has never seen his face in these dreams.

Until tonight, and it was Daniel. And this time, he didn’t bring her out of the mansion. She saw Charity shoot him again, and this time, she was there to watch the life leave his eyes.

That’s when she woke up in tears.

Grace is trembling, from equal parts anger and fear. Daniel is beside her, just far enough that they are not touching, just near enough that she can almost feel his heat. His eyes are wide open, but she isn’t sure if she woke him up, or if he’s been unable to fall asleep at all.

She knows he won’t ask. He’s fine just offering his presence, and no need for them to therapise each other. But this is different, and she wants him to know.

“Hold me,” she pleads, crawling over to him, resting her head on his chest. She drinks in the steady rise and fall of his chest, breathing in the safety of his arms encircling around her. Their new reality feels like delicate fabric; if she spends too much time poking around details, it’ll all fall apart. A year ago, Daniel was just a distant name, spoken of fondly but never without a disappointed sigh.

“Do you want to talk?”

A year ago, Grace had plans. Dreams. Ambitions. Nowadays she struggles to get out of bed, and her knife-crazy ex-husband’s brother is her only tether to the world.

Even nestled in his arms, it still feels like a jump to tell Daniel that her nightmare is losing him. Sidestepping it, she says: “I’m just so _tired_. My therapist asked me about plans for the future and something hit me. I will never get over this. My life was fine, and then there was that one night, and now I will spend the rest of my life trying to pick up the pieces.”

“ _Grace_ —”

“I’m exhausted, Daniel.” Getting agitated, she moves so that she’s halfway sitting up, and able to face him. “I look over my shoulder everywhere I go. I’m still startled by sudden noises. I can’t look at weddings, I can barely stand white dresses. Seeing my own blood makes me want to break down in tears. Georgie shot my fucking hand, Daniel. But what do I even _say_ about that? He was just a kid. And it doesn’t even matter because he _fucking exploded_. How do I even begin to move past this?”

It takes a while before Daniel responds. “I can’t eat mutton.”

“Fuck you.”

Grace shoves him lightly, a smile on her face despite herself. She knows she _should_ be angry, that if it were anyone else, she would be (not, of course, that there remotely is anyone else). Daniel catches her hand as it hits him and pulls her arm back to settle her into his chest again. He’s stroking her arm, her back, her hair, anything to calm her down. “I don’t think you ever will. I don’t think either of us ever can,” he says, sombre.

“And that’s it? We just accept that?”

“I think…I think we just have to find reasons to keep going. Pour in the good so that maybe one day it’ll outweigh the bad.”

“There’s a lot of fucking bad.”

“Then I guess we’d better start searching.”

Grace wants to ask him _where_ they’re even going to start finding any “good” to pour into their lives. As if he hasn’t noticed that the only real thing their lives have been full of is each other.

And she thinks about how Daniel pulls laughter out of her even when it should be impossible. About how thinking about him is what gives her the strength to leave the house in the fleeting times she actually does. About how lying down there, on his chest, gives rise to a feeling that hit suspiciously like home. About his stupid messy brown hair, and the smirk she’d swear she’s sick of seeing. About how she just wants to—

She turns again, supporting her arm on the side of the couch so that she can pull herself closer to him. “ _Daniel_ ,” she says, quiet, longing, hoping.

All her life, Grace has never been someone known for her restraint. She barges through first and decides on the consequences later, sometimes a battering ram where a delicate hand might be wanted. She marries a rich guy whose family she knows very little about, sold on now-empty promises and amazing sex.

But she stops here, hovering just above Daniel, daring him to take that final step. She _wants_ him, she knows that now, but still already she’s thinking of how she’ll backtrack, and how they’ll brush this off once the sun comes up. Until Daniel dips his head to close the gap between them.

The first kiss is hesitant, just a brush of lips. _His skin is so dry_ , she notes. There are so many things pulling her into the physicality of the moment, and Grace knows that if she focuses too much on them, she will step out of the delicate bubble they’ve created.

He makes a noise, somewhere caught between a grunt and a sigh, as if he’s snapped back into reality. “Grace, I know I’m not the—”

But she’s not ready to be drawn back into the here and now, so she crashes back down to him, moving with intent. In this moment she has found him anew, and she won’t leave him to descend alone again. It’s slow at first, like the first scouting mission sent out on new land. Grace feels heady as she brings her hands to find purchase on his body, dragging her fingers over his chest, his jaw, his hair, finally resting around his neck. He grabs hold of her hips, sitting the both of them up. In the heated haze, Grace finds them pulling clothes off each other until they’re just skin resting upon skin. There is a desperation set between them, a need that demands meeting.

Daniel is experienced, as she would expect him to be (although her mind chooses not to be fixed too long on the idea of Charity being the one in her position), but so is she. Even though it’s been months since either of them have been this close to anyone, they take up their roles with gusto. He’s nipping at her skin; she’s tasting his, taking him in with a hunger that’s been dormant too long.

They are rising to push towards crescendo until Daniel cuts in: “I don’t have a condom.”

Naturally, Grace doesn’t have one either, which she suspects he knows. Sex with strangers has been on neither of their agendas, and she prays that sex with _her_ isn’t slipping off his. They are a fragile thing, like the first peek of dawn’s sunlight after a stormy night.

She sighs, pursing her lips, looking at him. “Maybe it’s a sign we should—”

He cuts her off with a kiss. “Don’t worry about it.”

Before Grace has time to wonder what he means by that, Daniel has started making his way down her body, kissing down to her legs and opening up her thighs. She’s not sure if it’s been too long, or if he’s just _that good_ , but she knows that she won’t last long. Her fingers grip his hair, pulling him tighter towards her, nearer her, into her. As she cries out for release, Grace thinks _maybe_ everything has been worth it just for this.

* * *

Later on, they’re still lying on the sofa, and it feels almost as though everything that happened might’ve just been a dream.

“I wondered why Le Bail would save me,” he whispers. “After Charity shot me, I knew I should be dead. I deserved it. I still do.” Grace questions if she should tell him that reminders of the devil and dips into self-loathing tend to kill the mood for her more than it excites it, but she senses that he has something to say. “But I think this is why. He saved me for you.”

She remembers a thought she had once, about the inevitability of the two of them: two souls broken, two souls slowly mended by the strength of the other. She remembers hearing once, from a Joni Mitchell song, that _love is touching souls_. Grace doesn’t think they’re anywhere near that yet, but there’s something nebulous growing in the arena of being held.

“You saved me first.”

She’s never been that great with words or emotions or intense vulnerability, so instead she kisses him again, pouring herself into him, hoping he might understand.

* * *

Grace finds out, afterwards, about the therapy of touch. The healing powers of Daniel’s body against hers far outstrips the capabilities of any doctor, mental or physical. It’s not just the sex, even if the sex is great (condoms were the first item on the shopping list for their next grocery run). It’s the small things, like his hand resting on her back as she’s cooking dinner, or the weight of his shoulder resting against her as they marathon movies on her couch.

“You’ve been a lot happier, as of late,” her therapist even tells her. “Calmer, even.”

She bites her lip, trying to pre-empt the conversation that might follow if she tells him that she’s feeling better because she’s been sleeping with her brother-in-law (does that title even count? If the husband/brother in question is dead?). Grace settles on: “I met someone.”

Her therapist nods. “That’s a good sign. Can you tell me more about him?”

“He really understands me. There’s no hiding between us, no lies. He’s my support right now more than anyone.”

“How does he make you feel?”

“Like he sees me, you know? He makes me feel…found.”

* * *

Grace decides to take Daniel on a tour of the old Grace’s favourite places (the new Grace’s favourite places are her bed and his, with their sofas receiving an honourable mention). Their first stop is a park not too far from her old apartment, although it dawns on Grace that she’s actually never taken _Alex_ here before.

“Do you want to feed the ducks?” she asks, brandishing the loaf of bread she’d bought after forcing them on a detour.

He smirks. “I thought that bread was for us.”

“Daniel, I made _sandwiches_. You do _not_ need an entire loaf of plain bread.”

“Maybe I get hungry. You don’t know me.”

“Please, I’ve basically been your personal chef for the last few weeks. I promise you that I do.”

He lets her pull him by the arm towards the lake, where Daniel starts to set up their picnic mat and Grace pulls off pieces of her loaf to feed the ducks. By the time he joins her, he’s readied everything for them.

“Did you do this often as a kid?” he asks, as she passes him a chunk to start tossing in.

“Not as a kid. I tried not to be a nuisance in my foster homes and coming all the way to the park was kind of a big ask. I only started when I moved here after college.”

“I gotta say, I don’t think I’ve really met many people who’d come all the way here for it.”

“What, the country’s most rich and famous aren’t fans of lowly park ducks?”

Daniel doesn’t respond, but Grace chalks it up to the fact that there’s not much to say anyway. When she looks at him, though, she realises he’s just been staring at her. There’s a distinct sensation of being set under the lens of a microscope. This man has seen her naked and Grace still feels awkward under his gaze. After a while, he asks, “What do you like about it?”

“I think it’s nice to be a provider. Like a caretaker, even. Feels like I’m at least doing right by someone.” To punctuate her point, she takes the opportunity to turn her attentions back to the ducks, and tosses a piece in for effect.

“Even if it’s just lowly park ducks?”

“Especially then.”

It’s only later, after they’ve sat down, that they realise they’re surrounded by couples.

Daniel, however, seems to take it in his stride. “Do you think we fit in? Although maybe one of us needs to start livestreaming our date to Instagram.”

He moves over the word so smoothly, but Grace catches hold of it, like a thorn holding fast to fabric. “Date?”

“I, uh,” he flusters. “I was just making a point.”

The idea of finding a label feels ridiculously juvenile, yet something about it sticks too tightly. She likes putting a name to things, even highly breakable things that names might shatter.

“I don’t think I’d mind,” she says slowly, allowing each word to settle between them like the autumn leaves falling around them. “If that’s what we were doing. If we were in the kind of…relationship. In which people did that.”

He doesn’t give her a moment to flounder. His hand covers hers, and when Grace looks up, Daniel’s smiling down at her warmly. It strikes her how different he is from the first time they’d met. It’d been dimly lit in that fancy restaurant, when Alex’d taken her to meet his favourite family member.

She was so nervous, and he was already tipsy. Grace remembered being certain that he didn’t like her, like he might’ve thought she was working some sort of angle and wasn’t good enough for his brother. And now…

“I like you, Grace. I don’t think I’d mind that either.”

By the time the sun is falling beneath the horizon, Grace and Daniel have fallen into each other, tangled on the picnic mat. She’s been put through hell but just perhaps she’s started to find heaven.

“I’m so thankful for you. Before all this, there was nothing good about my life. And don’t get me wrong. I don’t _wish_ all that this would happen. But I also know how lucky I am. That’s we’re here at the end of all of this,” Daniel says.

“Oh yeah? What do you wish, then?”

He sighs, considering. “I just…maybe, I wish Alex had made it too. Obviously, it’d fuck up the two of us. But it’s him who deserves it all. He’s the one with the soul.”

His words come like a slap in the face. “I’m sorry?”

“You know, to live. I just miss him so much. My parents did a lot of fucked up shit but they did the world right with him. I can’t believe they killed him too.”

Grace’s blood runs cold. Her body stiffens in Daniel’s embrace, but if he notices anything he doesn’t let on. She runs through the times they’ve spoken about Alex, and the things that Daniel has said about how he’s pieced together that night.

_He was unconscious when Alex called for them_ , she realises. _He’s only known what the officers have told him._

And the worst: _He doesn’t know_ who _Alex_ is. _Not really._

Grace isn’t sure if this means that she has to be the one to break the news to him. Before she’s decided, Daniel continues.

“You know, in some ways, I feel like I’m here, like we’re together, _for_ him. Like he’s the thing that binds us together. The goodness in the goat pit.”

She closes her eyes, steadying her breathing before it spirals out of control. Grace opens her mouth to tell him everything: _Alex is one of them. Alex tried to kill me. Alex is not the man you think he is. Alex isn’t the one who escaped, your family didn’t kill him._

_I let Le Bail kill Alex._

Instead, she sees the pieces of their little paradise shattering at her revelation. Him shaking his head in disbelief when she tells him what Alex has done. Him leaving when she tells him she let Le Bail explode his brother. Grace realises there is a not-zero-percent chance that he trusts a ghost with history over their tiny moments of the present.

And she decides that maybe he doesn’t need to know. She’s the only person alive who knows the truth of that night and Daniel doesn’t need his heart broken, doesn’t need a reason to walk away from her.

“Yeah,” she says, the words turning corrosive on her tongue. “I bet he’s watching over us right now.”

* * *

Grace understands that this makes her a selfish person, a bad person, but the falsehood she’s living with gets easier to manage.

She is distant at first, even Daniel’s touch soured by the truth between them. But she slowly allows them to fall back into a tenuous status quo, back into the quiet domesticity she’s missed. Funny that she married Alex for his family, and sure enough it’s his family that’s become her whole world.

When Daniel tries to touch her again, she steps away, claiming that she’s just not in the mood, then it’s her period, then she’s down with a cough. He learns to stop asking, but Grace is gratified to notice that nothing else changes between them.

The last time he tries, Grace suggests bagels instead. She feels ready to witness a change in his demeanour: anger, chagrin, frustration. But he just says: “Any recommendations?”

And she knows he’s a better man than she deserves. She just chooses not to let the thought linger.

* * *

On another lazy day, Grace bursts forth with: “Do you think we should get jobs?” They’re once again splayed out on the couch (although they’re at his apartment this time, for a change of scenery). It’s been half a year since her wedding, and she’s beginning to wonder if her mind is beginning to atrophy from lack of use.

He wrinkles his nose. Grace thinks it looks adorable. Grace decides not to think about that too much. “You do _realise_ that we’re billionaires, don’t you?”

“Which is disgusting, by the way.”

“Don’t look at me, I didn’t make the deal.”

“You did grow up on it, though.”

“Touché.”

Grace tries again, “I don’t mean about the money, though. It’s just that, well, I know the company’s in the hands of the acting CEO, and you didn’t have that big a hand in the operations anyway. But I thought maybe we could do something more productive with our time. Maybe not a job, then. Maybe philanthropy? Since we’ve got all that money to blow.” She’s careful not to use _the other word_ synonymous with philanthropy, figuring that neither of them need reminders to dead spouses (who, incidentally, have tried to kill them).

“How pedestrian.”

“Daniel—”

“No, you’re right.” He looks at her meaningfully. “You’ll have to teach me, though.”

* * *

The dissolution of the Le Domas dominion is the big news of the day. The stakeholders warn against it, and the lawyers say it’ll take quite some time.

It’s the first time since Grace decided to hide the truth from Daniel that she’s felt like a decent person.

“It’s been proposed that we should hold a fancy auction night to sell off some assets. Since the fire didn’t touch the basement levels, we _do_ have quite a bit to get rid of. And the lawyers figure this’ll help create some interest in general,” Daniel suggests.

“Don’t big benefit events just _spend_ money that could be going to, y’know, the people they’re supposedly benefitting?”

“You’re not technically wrong, but counterpoint: I’m a selfish prick and I kind of miss hosting big events.”

Grace softens, wishing that she could promise him that he’s not the selfish one between them. So she does the next best thing. She agrees.

* * *

Alex had been an heir on the run, which meant that in that short-lived time as his girlfriend-turned-fiancé, Grace hadn’t actually been privy to the true lifestyles of the rich and famous. Daniel makes it his mission that in their grand finale to wealth, she should get to be. With their days of limitless time, he prepares her an army of stylists, designers, and an assortment of beauty professionals.

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want,” he reminds her. “Just say the word and we can pull the plug.”

But she’s doing this for reasons bigger than herself, so Grace lets herself get swept up in the preparation. The one part she _does_ enjoy is picking a dress. She hadn’t been allowed many things that were truly her own, growing up. She was raised on fraying hand-me-downs that either slipped off her shoulder or squeezed her body in uncomfortable places. The idea of a dress made just for her sets her alight like few other things have. The only other dress that was just for her was her wedding gown, and the less said about that, the better.

It’s only on the night of the auction that she even lets Daniel see it, when he brings the chauffeured car to pick her up at her apartment. He lingers at the doorway, taking her in, as she twirls for him in the middle of the living room. There’s nothing that special about it, just a slinky gown sewn from soft velvet, a dark blue like the night sky.

“I have half a mind to cancel the whole thing so that I can take that dress off you right now,” he says. The words seem to just slip out, carelessly, thoughtlessly, and that’s when she knows they’ve both got it bad.

On another day, Grace might be apprehensive at the implication of them taking things further again. But she feels too good tonight, so she allows it. “I have half a mind to let you.”

His eyes seem to sparkle at the possibility, but he offers his arm to her instead to lead her down to the street. His touch is a salve and she is forever wanting.

* * *

Daniel is in his element, she realises. And Grace sees clearly, that night, the things he’s giving up, just because she asked. She’s only known Daniel in the way the Le Domases have described him: the family failure, the useless drunk. There’s none of that to be found here as he seamless cuts through the crowd, effortlessly making conversation with society’s upper echelons, commanding the attention of everyone he passes.

Yet, he never leaves her alone to fend for herself. Whenever she wants him, he’s right there.

“You’re good at this,” she tells him, still in awe of the festivities. “You love this. And you’re giving it all away.”

“No, you’re right, eat the rich, remember? Besides, I love— I love to move on from everything. We should start afresh.”

Someone’s calling her away now, probably a reporter of some sort, or maybe the assistant she’s recently hired to handle her affairs. She stays put, though, attached to Daniel. Grace can’t quite focus, not with the warmth of his hand spreading through her arm. His hand is the tether tying her to the world.

“What will we do?”

He shrugs. “For the first time, whatever we want.”

* * *

Grace next remembers being aware of being put down. She opens her eyes to meet the sight of Daniel’s chest, and she realises that he’s holding her. “What are you doing?”

“You fell asleep in the car, so we’re back at yours now.”

As her vision adjusts, she sees the dim shapes that make up her bedroom. He’s set her down on the bed and has made a space to sit beside her. “What time is it?” she asks.

“About three in the morning. Do you want me to get a change of clothes for you?”

“Yes,” she replies, but frowns at the empty space Daniel leaves when he stands. “No, stay here.”

“I can only do one,” he chides, but she hears the smile in his voice. After a moment, he rejoins her on the bed.

“Will you lie next to me?”

There’s another beat, but soon he’s shedding his coat, and swinging his legs onto the mattress. As she feels him come close to her, any tiredness Grace had before ebbs away. His presence makes her feel alive, perhaps for the first time in her life. “Thank you, Daniel.”

“Hm? What for?”

“Tonight. Every day. Everything. You.”

Daniel breathes heavily. His voice is thick. “You’re killing me here, Grace.”

In the allowance of the moonlight filtering past her half-drawn curtains, Grace’s eyes drink in the art of Daniel’s face. Slowly, her hand comes to brush the curve of his cheekbones, the sharp lines of his jawline, the soft crinkle at his eyes. “You’re beautiful.”

His voice sounds controlled when he speaks. “You’re perfect.”

Her breath catches, as she languishes in the intensity of his gaze and the sincerity of his words. She knows what it means to be feeling this way, of course. There was a time when it was Alex who lay beside her.

Somehow, the past feels like a mirage, though. She can never focus on her old life for too long, before those thoughts are consumed with the joy of right now. In the dearth of language, Grace lets her body speak for her instead. She closes the little space between them. He pulls away.

“Grace, what are we doing?”

“What we want?”

He pauses. “Okay. We’ll talk later but…okay.”

Daniel kisses her, sweetly and softly and full of affection. He sits up without breaking the connection, kneeling so that his legs are bracketing hers. He’s sucking down on her neck, and Grace feels frenzied, moving fast to unbutton his shirt, to unbuckle his belt. As her hand dips into his pants, he groans.

“Not so fast,” he growls. “Your turn.”

He lifts her, fingers seeking gingerly the zips of her dress so that he can peel it off her. It pools around her ankles and she kicks it off onto the floor. Grace fists his shirt to pull him closer. Daniel responds in kind, pressing against her with bruising kisses.

She whimpers from the cold lack of contact when he leans back to shrug off his shirt and push down his pants, but watches him, transfixed. There’s a new energy crackling in the air tonight, and Grace is ready to make the most of it.

Daniel reaches behind her for the condoms in her bedside drawer, and she’s so grateful tonight of all times that they’ve been prepared. When he pushes into her with fierce familiarity, Grace’s mind is conscious only to call out his name.

* * *

Dawn is just breaking when Grace wakes up, but this time it’s not the sound of her own strangled cries that force her into consciousness. She frowns, realising the bed is empty beside her. But her heart softens when she catches sight of the glass of water left on her bedside table, which suggests that Daniel hasn’t gone far.

She makes her way out of the room to investigate, and finds the television left on, lights blaring but muted. Daniel’s lying on the couch. He’s passed out, seemingly in the middle of an apparently less-than-riveting news segment, as she judges from the channel.

She briefly considers kissing him awake before deciding against it. Whatever her feelings _might_ be, that still sits a touch too domestic for her tastes, and of course, she’s seen where domesticity leads her.

Still, she rearranges his limbs and lets herself find a space beside him, her skin ghosting beside his– not touching but close enough to feel his warmth. Grace leans her head against back of couch, where Daniel’s head lies too. He’s peaceful when he’s asleep. Beautiful, really. Transcendent, if she’s honest.

It’s when her fingers caress his cheek that Grace realises the truth; she’s actually, fully, completely in trouble. There’s a name for the emotion she’s carrying for him, and even if she’d refuse to say it, she knows exactly what it is. It _would_ figure, wouldn’t it? That she’d fall from the arms of one Le Domas brother into the other.

Except, even if she’s the only person alive who knows it, she does know that saying that isn’t fair to Daniel. Even when they were yet strangers, he’s the one who chose to save her. He didn’t want to be owed or to own, he just knew the right thing to do. But she’s let him go on believing the easy lie because she couldn’t bear to lose the one person who understood her.

And it’s only so much worse now. And she knows she owes it to Daniel, to their promise made way back when, even if it kills her. Grace sees their fragile thing shattering, but she knows it’s not her place to stop the breaking anymore. For the moment, she leans back into his body, relishing the last moments of peace that she already knows she doesn’t deserve.

* * *

“You’re saying _what_?”

“Daniel, please. You have to believe me.”

He backs away from her, but she takes his hand, his arm, his face, anything that she can hold onto. Any part of _him_ she can hold on to.

Finally, he sighs. “I knew him. He was the one who got out. And Alex was the most important person in the world to me. I would’ve died for him. I love him,” he pauses, pinching his nose bridge. “And you’ve known this the whole time. That you… that he…”

“No! I mean, of course I knew what happened that night, but I didn’t know you _didn’t_! I only realised it…” Grace’s hand fly to her mouth.

“You realised it _when_?”

She looks to the ground, praying that it might open up to swallow her or that an answer might rise from it. Grace watches her tears hit the floor instead. There’s a sharp pain blooming in her chest, but there’s no knife or gunshot to blame. “It was the day at the park. That was the first time you talked about him.”

His voice is tight. “Why didn’t you tell me then? We said— we promised we’d hide nothing.”

Her voice is breaking as she answers. “I didn’t…I was scared of losing you. I didn’t know what would happen, so I didn’t say anything at all.”

“So you decided that it would be better to just _lie_ to me?”

“I’ve been alone all my life, Daniel. All I’ve ever wanted is some place I could call home, and that’s you. You’re the family I’ve always wanted—”

“Alex was my family,” he cuts in, and Grace feels as though the world is shaking around her, pulled up from the roots. “I deserve to know who he was, and what happened to him! That he could’ve…that he was…that you chose…”

Grace wishes that she had a retort, an explanation, a justification.

He tries again, “You know, I told you that you didn’t belong as a Le Domas. Maybe that…” He trails off and stops. Daniel is silent for a long time.

“I think…we shouldn’t see each other for a while. I need some time to think.” He peels out of her apartment. This time, she knows not to stop him.

* * *

They have an appearance together the next day, at a wildlife conservation benefit. Although it’s the last thing she feels like doing, Grace dresses up. She’s sure to wear the blue dress she knows he loved before, even though it’s probably social suicide in these circles to re-wear outfits.

She arrives late, and she spots him across the hall. Against her better judgement, her feet are taking the steps towards him, she’s about to call his name, never mind what anyone might think.

But she’s cut off by another attendee trying to get her attention. She shrugs them off as quickly as she’s able, but Daniel’s gone by the time she looks up again.

Grace doesn’t see him in the rest of the night.

* * *

Grace’s phone is glued to her hand over the next few days. She oscillates between wanting to call him to explain more (not that there’s really much to say, if she’s honest), and knowing that she needs to give him space. Still, that doesn’t stop her from jumping up in hopeful alarm every time her phone buzzes with an alert.

Of course, though, it’s never him. It’s the news or her assistant or her lawyer or her therapist. Without him, her life feels sucked dry of the reasons that make doing everything else have a purpose. She marks her days in empty takeout food containers that she hasn’t bothered to throw out, filling her time with useless drama of petty tv serials. When you’ve gone through your own unimaginable season, manufactured spectacle reeks of unsatisfying mockery.

Before she can decide against it, Grace takes her phone out to text him. Scrolling by their chat history, she’s hit with a pang of sadness at the memory of how good she had it, even just for that little while.

She opts to keep it short. Just to let him know how she’s feeling, but nothing that pushes him to feel pressured.

_I’m sorry, Daniel_ , she settles on. _I miss you. Please come back to me._

* * *

There’s a knock on her door early the next day. The last thing on Grace’s mind is receiving guests (especially since there’s no one in the world she actually wants to talk to), but the intruder is insistent, so she pulls herself out of bed.

He’s on the other side of the door.

Daniel’s carrying a brown paper bag, and the smell from it tells her that it’s the best bagels in the world. There are two cups of coffee in his other hand. It’s the other night never happened, but her heart is too broken for her to believe that it didn’t.

“Daniel?”

“Can I come in? I brought breakfast, since I figured you wouldn’t be awake yet. I got your favourite.”

Grace isn’t quite sure what’s happening, but she steps aside to let him in. She watches him in silence as he puts the food down on the coffee table in the living room. He leans back on the sofa, sipping on the coffee.

“You coming to sit?” he asks.

She can’t tell if he’s working an angle. Mostly, she’s in amazement that he’s even here, so she obeys his instruction. Grace is stiff, sitting on the far side against him. She’s hyperaware of every tiny movement her body makes, wondering if that makes a different to how he’s seeing her right now.

After what feels like too long, she stares at him put the cup down, and reach over to her hands balled up on her lap. When she’s eased her hand so that he can hold it, he squeezes.

He begins haltingly, gradually hitting a flow. “I-I said a lot of things, the other, the other night. And I was wrong. About family and getting out and being a Le Domas. The truth is, Grace, ever since we’ve gotten together, since the first time, I’ve just been waiting for the other shoe to drop. He was the good one, y’know? Shining heir to the Le Domas everything. I couldn’t really _believe_ everything between us, it just felt too good to be true. And I felt like, maybe, you were replacing him with me, but that was okay, because then at least I still got to hold you and know you and even lo- be there for you.”

“You’re so much better than that, Daniel.”

“Well, I’m getting an idea of that _now_. But when you told me about what _really_ happened on the night of your wedding, nothing made any sense. I was so sure that that wasn’t the Alex I knew, but maybe I just, haven’t really known him truly for a while. He used to tell me, when we were younger, that he’d never get married, because he didn’t want to come back home. I never understood why he’d marry you, then. He seemed to love you so much, though, and I guessed that must be why.”

As Daniel speaks, Grace inches her way closer to him, until they’re where they belong, pressed against each other. “He wanted to control me,” she supplies.

He nods. “But that’s all just to say, it’s scary to hear that I’m your family. Because I know how long you wanted one, and I was certain I would be letting you down once you remembered that it was supposed to be Alex. Not to mention that of course, the idea of ‘family’ comes with a good amount of baggage.

“I _was_ still angry that you lied to me, but I’m done letting the Le Domas fuckery stop me from being happy. And Grace, _you_ make me happy.”

She brings a hand to cup his cheek, and he leans into her touch. “You make _me_ happy, Daniel. And I…I love you.”

Daniel just stares at Grace, although his eyes are soft. “You love me? Are you sure?”

“I’ve never been surer of anything in my entire life. I’m choosing you, Daniel,” she assures him, and pulls his face close so that she can appease him with a kiss. He breaks away, only to rest his forehead against hers.

“I love you too, Grace.”

* * *

They don’t leave the couch for the rest of the day, which suits them both just fine. When Grace finally falls asleep, the Daniel in her dreams gets to live, too.


End file.
